"unequal treatment in hiring and in the work setting is real and may be reflected in unequal pay.

Yet
it is also true that the time demands of many jobs can explain much of
the pay difference, a finding that has sobering implications.
Eliminating the gender earnings gap will require changes in millions of
households and thousands of individual workplaces.

Even
defining the gender earnings gap isn’t simple: It cannot be reduced to a
single number, though it often is expressed that way. According to a
commonly used measure adopted by the United States Census Bureau, women in 2016 earned 81 cents for each dollar earned by men, both working full-time.

This
definition focuses on the annual income of the individual at the median
— or middle — of the income distribution for men and for women. Another
valid option is to focus on mean, or average, earnings."

"The
gap is larger among more educated people, for example, and varies
according to occupation, often in big ways. Among college graduates, it
is far larger in business, finance and legal careers than in science and
technology jobs. In health care, it is larger when self-employment is
high (think dentists) and much lower when professionals are mainly
employees (think pharmacists).

What’s
more, the gap is a statistic that changes during the life of a worker.
Typically, it’s small when formal education ends and employment begins,
and it increases with age. More to the point, it increases when women
marry and when they begin bearing children.

Using
the data that shows women earn 81 cents for each dollar earned by men,
when the careers of recent college graduates start, the gap is much
smaller: 92 cents for each male dollar. By the time college-educated
women are 40 years old, they earn 73 cents.

Similar patterns appear using data for women and men who have earned master’s degrees
in business administration. Immediately after graduation, women earn 92
cents for each male dollar. A decade later they earn only 57 cents.

Correcting for time off and hours of work reduces the difference in the earnings between men and women but doesn’t eliminate it.

On
the face of it, that looks like proof of disparate treatment. It may
seem understandable that when a man works more hours than a woman, he
earns more. But why should his compensation per hour be greater, given
the same qualifications? But once again, the problem isn’t simple."

The
data shows that women disproportionately seek jobs — including
full-time jobs — that are more likely to mesh with family
responsibilities, which, for the most part, are still greater for women
than for men. So, the research shows, women tend to prefer jobs that
offer flexibility: the ability to shift hours of work and rearrange
shifts to accommodate emergencies at home.

Such
jobs tend to be more predictable, with fewer on-call hours and less
exposure to weekend and evening obligations. These advantages have a
negative consequence: lower earnings per hour, even when the number of
hours worked is the same.

Is
that unfair? Maybe. But it isn’t always an open-and-shut case.
Companies point out that flexibility is often expensive — more so in
some jobs than others.

Certain job characteristics have a big impact on the gender earnings gap. I have looked closely at these issues, including the extent to which workers are:

■ Subject to strict deadlines and time pressure

■ Expected to be in direct contact with other workers or clients

■ Instructed to develop cooperative working relationships

■ Assigned to work on highly specific projects

■ Unable to independently determine their tasks and goals

Occupations
with a lower level of these characteristics (like jobs in science and
technology) show smaller gaps, corrected for hours of work. Occupations
with a higher level (like those in finance and law) have greater gaps.
Men’s earnings tend to surge when there are fewer substitutes for a
given worker, when the job must be done in teams and when clients demand
specific lawyers, accountants, consultants and financial advisers. Such
differences can account for about half the gender earnings gap.

These
findings provide more nuance in explaining why the gap widens with age
and why it is greater for women with children. Whatever changes have
already taken place in American society, the duty of caring for children
— and for other family members — still weighs more heavily on women.
And if you thought that moving to a more family-friendly nation would
eliminate the gap, think again. In several nations, including Sweden and Denmark,
a “motherhood penalty” in earnings exists, even though these nations
have generous family policies, including paid family leave and
subsidized child care."

"In sum, the gap is mainly the upshot of two separate but related forces:
workplaces that pay more per hour to those who work longer and more
uncertain hours, and households in which women have assumed
disproportionately large responsibilities."